


I won't beg

by stilesstilerstyle



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drugging, Other, Pain, Psychological Torture, Torture, smothering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 19:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9398843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stilesstilerstyle/pseuds/stilesstilerstyle
Summary: If John had gotten hurt in TLD instead of Sherlock, and ended up in that hospital bed.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just something I wanted to get out of my system, because I am a terrible person... I'm so sorry... ^^;

John realized now that it had been foolish to try and stop his deranged friend. Stepping in between him and Culverton and trying to wrestle the scalpel from him hadn’t worked out the way John had meant for it to. Now he was lying in a hospital bed, a deep cut in his abdomen and several smaller scrapes on his forearms.

 

Pain shot through him and made him wince as he tried to move the blankets. Culverton had been so kind as to move him to a room that was very nicely furnished, and no other patients bothered him. He was grateful to the man.

 

Smith had immediately called the police, hospital workers had pulled Sherlock off of John, who had shortly after the attack started to profusely apologize. John hadn’t been able to answer. He was lying on the ground in the mortuary for what seemed like hours before they finally brought in a stretcher and started to stop the bleeding. Of course it hadn’t been more than a few minutes, but yet, it had felt similar as to back when he had been lying in the dirty sand in Afghanistan, shoulder shot, waiting for death.

 

That Sherlock would be the reason for his death hadn’t surprised him, he knew since he met the man, that if he was going to die of unnatural causes, that Sherlock would somehow play a role in the whole story. But that it would actually be him, who rammed a surgical tool into his stomach had never occurred to him. Never.

 

There had been a very short moment where he’d stared into Sherlock’s eyes in disbelief, and he saw that Sherlock hadn’t meant to, that John wasn’t meant to get stabbed, that John had been supposed to stay aside and let Sherlock ruin his own life.

  
And now he had. John had failed. Instead of hitting the scalpel out of Sherlock’s hand he’d sealed his fate of ending up in a prison cell. He needed to let Greg know that it hadn’t been Sherlock’s fault. Of course he was angry, he was furious, but that didn’t mean that Sherlock deserved to be incarcerated for almost killing his best friend.

Well. His friend.

 

John closed his eyes, and scrunched up his nose. Sleep beckoned and he welcomed it with open arms, ready to forget for the time being that his wife was dead, that his best friend was a junkie, that he himself was a failure who couldn’t even take care of his own daughter.

 

Slowly he dozed off, not hearing the wall open, oblivious to the door being locked, and unable to register the chair being pulled up to his bed.

 

He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep. But pain awoke him with a start. His eyes were suddenly wide and he groaned as he stared at the ceiling. Something was off. His pain medication was supposed to keep him from feeling the tearing pain that radiated from the stab wound in his stomach. Blearily he looked to his right, trying to make out the machine that regulated his pain medication. His eyes were unable to focus. Swallowing dryly his eyes kept wandering the room until they stopped on a figure sitting at his bedside.

 

His brain short circuited and he spoke hoarsely: “Sherlock?” He blinked, trying to get the tears that had started to well up in the corners of his eyes to drop or recede.

 

A chuckle sounded from the figure, which John now realized was way too short and stunted to be the famous detective. “Not quite, I’m afraid, Doctor Watson.”

 

The tip of his tongue darted out to wet his chapped lips. Culverton leaned forward in his chair, elbows propped up on his legs, a cruel smirk twisting the corners of his mouth.

 

“What… are you doing here?”, John asked, not quite understanding, his mind too slow, too muddy. It felt like he had honey in his skull, and his thoughts got stuck in the sticky fluid, unable to move back or forth.

 

Crooked teeth showed as Culverton cracked a smile. “I’m just here to make sure you are alright, Doctor. We wouldn’t want you to think we don’t care about our patients.”

 

Before John could utter a word, the other man continued. “You sure do look like you’re in pain, let me put up the dosage of your medicine a bit.” John’s eyes followed Culverton’s movement, as he slowly, almost lazily stood and made his way over to the machine. John’s brow furrowed. “You’re not actually allowed to do that, you know.”

 

Culverton gave him a comforting smile and a gentle look. “Don’t you worry, Doctor, I know just enough to help make the pain stop.”

 

John couldn’t see what the man was pressing, and an ugly feeling started to seep into his belly.

 

“It should be all better in a bit.” John winced again as his stomach punched another stab of pain through his muscles. He bit down on the moan of pain, not wanting to seem weak.

Only now did John realize that Culverton was wearing latex gloves.

 

He swallowed thickly, eyeing the small hands on the man and then his gaze flitted upwards to look right into that face. That face that was so familiar from all over television and the paper, and yet, it seemed so alien as it was staring down at him now.

 

The smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, his presence wasn’t comforting, but instead rather intimidating and it gave John the creeps to be alone with this man.

 

“Thank you.”

  
John started. “What are you thanking me for?”, he asked in confusion, eyes narrowing.

 

Culverton sighed and raised his brows. “Well for saving my life of course. That Holmes is much crazier than I had originally thought. I was just having a laugh, and then… Well you know what happened, you were there.” A dry, humourless laugh sounded from the man’s mouth.

 

John gave a sharp nod. Not feeling like actually uttering the words “you’re welcome”, because in fact, John hadn’t been trying to save Culverton, but rather Sherlock, from himself.

 

John’s temple itched and he felt tired.

 

They were staring into each other’s eyes, one man’s warm and kind, and the other’s dark with intent. He couldn’t look away.

 

The smile on Culverton’s face slowly slipped away, as if a curtain was lowered over his features. He raised his hand to pat John’s arm, in a seemingly warm gesture.

 

The fingers on his left hand twitched.

 

The silence was awkward and uncomfortable and John didn’t know what to expect.

John watched as Culverton’s thick tongue came out to trace his lips and teeth. It was a disgusting display. Tongue between his teeth, the smile came back and a light gleamed in his eyes.

 

“You really are the stupid one, aren’t you…”

 

“What?”

 

“Look at you. You’re a doctor, and yet you don’t think it’s odd that a man you barely know comes into your hospital room at the dead of night to talk to you?” Culverton barked a loud laugh, giving John a look of pity.

 

John swallowed, the ugly feeling in his gut twisting and reaching around his stomach to press and pull. “You don’t even feel the difference, do you?” He was still laughing, he roared and patted John’s arm a few more times.

 

“What are you getting at?” John’s nostrils flared as he looked at the man standing at his bedside, clearly enjoying a joke that John wasn’t party to.

 

“Oh Doctor Watson.” Finally the laughing subsided and Culverton reached up to wipe away a tear that had escaped his eyes during his laughing fit. “It’s so funny to see you try to understand, even after having received the explanation this very afternoon.”

 

It clicked.

 

John’s lips parted in shock, and the ugly feeling went rampant inside him, seeping into his brain with an alarming velocity, and tore out the thought that had lain dormant at the back of his mind.

 

“You’re here to kill me.” Breathless words came from a mouth that didn’t seem to be his own anymore.

 

Culverton tilted his head a bit to the side and gave John a pitiful look, smiling as if here were smiling at a child, that didn’t quite understand.

“There you go. You’ve finally made it, I’m so proud of you.”

 

John slowly shook his head.

 

“It worked out quite wonderfully as well. You ending up getting hurt, just badly enough to have to stay in hospital, and your dear detective friend getting detained for doing the damage. It’s funny though, if you think about it, isn’t it.”

 

Culverton’s hand moved from John’s arm to his abdomen, just hovering above the wound. He was watching his own hand as the threat hung in the air.

 

John’s jaw was locked in terror. “Your dear junkie friend told you exactly what was going on, and yet, through your own anger and… let’s call it disgust… you didn’t want to believe. And here we are.”

 

The hand settled, without pressure. John was breathing shallowly, keeping his eyes on Culverton’s face.

  
“Don’t-“

  
“Or what, Doctor Watson? You’re in my house now. Don’t get me wrong, I am very grateful for your intervention.” He swivelled his head again to look at John, and showed his teeth.

 

“But mostly I am grateful because it landed you here in this bed. At my mercy. I never thought I’d get the chance to lay a finger on you. Let alone an entire hand.” He smiled brightly again, holding John’s gaze and started to steadily, slowly press down on John’s wound.

 

John’s eyes went wide in a split-second and his hands moved, far too slowly for John’s liking to grab onto Culverton’s wrist. It hurt, a lot, and his face twisted in pain as he huffed deep breaths in through gritted teeth.

 

Smith’s brow raised and he said “oh” in such a gleeful tone, that John could barely believe he had only uttered the one word.

 

“It’s ironic, is it not… A doctor in a hospital bed.”

 

He was too weak, and now he understood. Instead of turning up the pain medication, Culverton had raised the levels of a sedative instead. Just enough to keep John pliant and too weak to actually stop anything that was coming.

 

“You’re trying so hard to keep people from seeing your suffering. But I always see it. And let me tell you, you weren’t the only one down there, in the mortuary who was suffering.”  
  
The hand moved away from his wound and John bit back a cry of pain, his hands falling back to his sides again.

 

Culverton bit his bottom lip, smiling all the while. “The best thing about this whole thing is, that Holmes will blame himself, and no one can prove, that I killed you. After all the man has been practically declared insane.”

John was pressing his eyes shut, trying to reign in the pain from his belly as well as the roaring in his head.

 

When he finally opened his eyes again, Culverton was staring at him, his eyes were roaming over John’s form, his lips twitching. Then their gazes met again.

 

Smith slowly shook his head and smiled. He spoke, as if remembering a wonderful memory from when he was a child: “I love this part. Seeing their faces. Fearful, knowing what is coming… But my favourite part is to see how different they look when they’re dead.”

 

He smiled kindly: “I can’t wait to see what you look like when you’re dead, Doctor Watson.”

 

John’s lip trembled. He didn’t want to die.

 

“Take a deep breath if you want to.”

 

The small, stunted hands hovered over John’s face.

 

Calm settled in John’s bones. He knew there was no way out. He took a deep breath and readied himself, another time, for death.

 

 Thumb and forefinger of one hand closed on his nose, the other sealed itself tightly across his lips. He stared at Culverton, feeling weak and defeated. His brow furrowed and he glared. He would not go begging. He would not die as a man who was pleading for his life. Of course he didn’t want to die, he thought about all the people he’d be leaving behind. His daughter, Mrs Hudson, Sherlock…

 

With every second that passed, John’s need for air grew stronger, his hands twitched upwards, and his weak fingers circled Culverton’s wrists, scrabbling for purchase, attempting to pull him off, knowing full well it was useless.

 

John blinked, the pain in his belly and the urge to breathe paired together made for a torture that was hellish. Culverton tipped his head back, but kept gazing at John: “Maintain eye contact, maintain eye contact, maintain eye contact.” Ragged whispers filled John’s ears as he struggled for his life. Attempting to breathe in against the solid wall of latex, it was as useless as trying to push over a mountain.

 

“You’ll look so pretty when you’re dead.”

 

He was shaking, fingers loosening, eyes rolling back into his head, unable to stop the looming storm of death.

 

_“Please God, let me live.”_

He knew his last plea would go unheard.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading... Feel free to leave a comment.
> 
> I draw stuff... so if you want, you can head over to my artblog on tumblr:
> 
> http://purrlockholmes.tumblr.com/


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